1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for producing environmentally friendly microfine fiber and artificial leather products having low resistance to deformation and high tensity.
2. Description of the Prior Arts
A conventional method of producing microfine fiber artificial leather comprises reacting a solvent with a basic solution and a product of seperation.
TW76102732 discloses a method for producing microfine fibers. The fibers are made on a polyester membrane. Therefore, when a membrane fibrillation process is conducted, the membrane has to be detached from the fibers by dissolving the polyester membrane with basic solvent. Then the fiber is mechanically cleaved. Accordingly, this conventional method may result in serious water pollution.
Either U.S. Pat. No. 6,517,938 or JP2003105679 discloses a method for producing leather from microfine fibers. First, microfine fibers bundled to form a non-woven fabric, this is shrunk and impregnated with elastic polymer and a release agent is added before drying. Then, the microfine fibers are treated to attain artificial leather. However, the method uses a lot of solvent and produces much waste so the method has high cost and may cause environmental pollution.
JP2003105679 discloses a slice of artificial leather. The artificial leather is from filaments. First, the filaments are made into multiple webs having suitable weight and thickness. Then, the webs are layered into a three-dimensional non-woven material and mechanically bonded using needle punching or the like. Then, the non-woven material is impregnated with elastic polymer and pressed in a mold to attain the slice of artificial leather. However, the slice artificial leather lacks entirety and has low elasticity and a tensile strength less than 300 N/5 cm.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,838,043 discloses a method of producing a synthetic leather comprising depositing ultra-fine filaments to form a non-woven material that is bonded using high pressure water, impregnated with polyurethane (PU) and undergoing an after-treatment to get the synthetic leather. However, the method requires a lot of solvent and produces much waste so the has a high cost and may cause environmental pollution.
JP2001192936 discloses a method of producing an ultra-fine fiber, non-woven, splitable material using melt-spinning. However, a leather made of the non-woven lacks entirety the material does not have good elasticity and the tensile strength is around 300 N/5 cm.
To overcome the shortcomings, the present invention provides a method of producing environment friendly microfine fibers and leather made therefrom having low resistance to deformation and high elasticity to mitigate or obviate the aforementioned problems.